“Delilah was a very fine artist, you know,” Ellen continued. “Her work wasn’t really my style, but I appreciated her talent. As I understand it, she was represented by an exclusive art gallery in Carmel.”
“I haven’t been to Carmel yet. I hear it’s worth a visit.”
“Oh yes, indeed. Quite chichi, but darling. They have a Thomas Kinkade gallery there. Have you seen his work? I’ve heard critics say it’s more schlock than art, but that’s exactly why I like it. The paintings look like you could walk right intothat world, and it would smell like lilacs and roses. But this whole area of the coast is truly lovely—you really must take time to do some sightseeing, Harper. All you do is work!”
Harper smiled. In this way, if in no other, Ellen reminded her of her father, chiding Harper about becoming a workaholic. Being an academic—at least, being asuccessfulacademic—meant a life devoted to researching and writing and going to conferences and giving lectures and preparing courses and teaching classes and grading papers. It was as much vocation as profession, and did not leave a lot of time for other endeavors. The closest she and Grant ever came to a vacation was the time they both gave papers at a conference in Maui.
“Finding Delilah like that must have been traumatic for you,” said Ellen, reaching across the table and squeezing Harper’s hand. “I’m so sorry that happened.”
Harper nodded, tears stinging the back of her eyes. She took a fortifying sip of wine and changed the subject.
“By the way, I saw a dog last night at the Perles Mansion, and I think I saw the same one in the street in front of the house when I came home. A big black dog.”
“Like a Labrador retriever?”
“It looked bigger and leaner than a Lab, but I didn’t see it up close. Long legs, like a hound. It had something around its neck, but I couldn’t tell if it was a license or a name tag, or what it was. I was afraid it might have belonged to Delilah, but it seems she didn’t have a dog. Still, I hate to see any dog running the streets.”
“Tell me where you saw it, and I’ll call my friend Marta. She volunteers with an animal rescue. They can send a van around, see if they spot it.”
“Thanks,” said Harper. She wrote down a description of the dog and the approximate times and addresses where shehad seen it, then poured herself more wine while Ellen made the call. The wine was having an effect—Harper had not eaten much that day and could feel the alcohol going to her head. She should slow down.
“Marta’s on the case!” Ellen announced as she sat back down at the kitchen table. “Monterey’s not large, they’ll find the dog, or it will find its way home. Now, tell me what else you’ve been up to.”
Harper made Ellen laugh when she told her about exploring the abandoned barracks with her students and getting caught red-handed by the MPs.
“Speaking of ruins and Delilah,” Ellen said. “Her ex, Benjamin Philips, has been pushing to develop a ‘seaside paradise’ on the former army base. I wonder if that’s one of his proposed developments.”
“Usually I’m all for restoring historic buildings, but these are too far gone and were pretty ugly to begin with—flat roofs and concrete blocks, totally 1960s-era utilitarian.”
Ellen then asked Harper about her classes, and Harper confided about the difficulty she’d been having getting her students to engage with history. This was a recurring topic for them; as a retired high school teacher, Ellen knew the struggle firsthand.
“Oh, I wanted to ask you,” Harper said. “Did Monterey ever have witch trials?”
“You mean like at Salem?”
“Something along those lines. When I was on the ghost tour, the guide told us that the Perles Mansion was built on ‘troubled ground’ that had been the site of the gallows where witches were hung. He claimed this was the source of the alleged haunting of the Perles Mansion.”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Ellen said with a shake of her head. “Not in this area.”
“He probably made it up just to boost the drama of the evening,” said Harper. “Up to that point, we’d been looking at invisible footprints.”
“Invisible…?”
Harper nodded and they burst into laughter.
“Let me get us some crackers and cheese to go with this lovely wine,” Ellen said.
“You sit, I’ll get it.” Harper was familiar with Ellen’s cheerful kitchen, with its outdated pink linoleum counter, gleaming copper cookware on a shelf near the old-fashioned gas stove, bundles of drying herbs hanging from a rack, and two mason jars full of amber-colored sun tea on the windowsill. She took a hunk of cheese out of the fridge and set a handful of flatbread crackers on a Spode plate in a basket weave pattern that Ellen had inherited from her mother.
Harper’s mind wandered back to her encounter with Sigrid, the self-proclaimed “kitchen witch” she had met at Delilah Mason’s gate. What was now a proud declaration of self-expression and love of nature and ritual—calling oneself a “witch”—had, once upon a time, been cause to be tried, tortured, and executed.
There’s plenty of real drama in history,Harper thought as she set the plate on the table. No need to make it up.
“Did you know Monterey Jack cheese is originally from Monterey?” asked Ellen as she cut into the pale yellow hunk, this one studded with peppers.
“I never really thought about it, but that makes sense.”
“It originated here in the 1700s, with the Franciscan friars. Then a businessman named Jacks commercialized it, and I suppose the name stuck. This is a good one, from the Dillon Creamery, a local favorite.”
